Tiger of Dreams
by Evil Midnight Lurker
Summary: When a miscast spell sends every sleeping soul in Nerima into H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands, the amnesiac Nerima Wrecking Crew must forge new identities for their new world. But what chaos will ensue when memory returns?


This tale is in part a meditation on identity, on the various forces -- internal and external -- that shape us. Experience, memory, personality -- all of these interact in subtle ways; our reaction to what's happening to and around us, our experiences, is colored by our personality and by our memories of the past; experience then fades and becomes memory, less and less accurate as time goes by and we unconsciously edit it -- editing itself guided by subsequent experiences and personality; finally, personality itself is at least partly shaped by lying memory and recent experience. We are what we have made of ourselves, _and_ what the world has made of us. Experience, memory, personality.

Take one of those _away_, and things can get... interesting.

Mind you, this should also be a rollicking good heroic fantasy with True Love, High Adventure, Mistaken Identity, High Weirdness, and -- considering the setting -- a dab of Cosmic Horror and Things From Beyond.

Welcome to the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft.

**TIGER OF DREAMS:**

_A Twisted Tale from Beyond the Wall of Sleep_

The First Night: _What Dreams May Come?_

The world was a tunnel, damp rock walls dimly lit by patches of leprous glowing fungi. The wanderer could not remember how long he'd been walking, why he was here...or even who he was. It worried him from time to time, but there was little he could do about it.

Ahead, for the first time in memory, something different: a narrow side-tunnel led right and down; flickering, ruddy light came from somewhere deep within.

As the wanderer studied his new option, another man walked out of the darkness of the primary tunnel. The stranger was so intent on studying a large map that he nearly collided with the wanderer.

"Whoa! Sorry, didn't see you there," he apologized, then squinted at the wanderer. "Excuse me, but have we met before?"

"I was just thinkin' the same thing," the wanderer replied. "I can't quite place it, though...what was your name?"

The stranger paused. "...Y'know, I can't remember it. Or much of anything else."

"Huh. Join the club! I think my name begins with an R...Ran-something...but not much beyond that. You have any idea where we are?"

"No clue. I know I was going somewhere, someplace I really have to be...but I can't remember what or where it is, and this stupid map is absolutely NO help!"

"Can I have a look?" The wanderer pored over the ancient parchment. "Hmmm... Pingaree... Mountains of Mo... Nonestic Ocean? Jeez, I've never heard of any of this." He pointed to a dashed line. "'Nome King's Tunnel?' That's the only thing here that fits the bill..."

"No, that doesn't sound right..." the stranger muttered. "Maybe I'm using the wrong map. I've got a whole bunch in my backpack." He unshouldered the heavy pack and rummaged through it, coming up with a sheaf of similar parchments.

Ten minutes later, the two had gone through maps of Zothique, Prydain, Patanga, Yoknapatawpha County, Barsetshire, Middle-earth, Midkemia, Sosaria, Schlarrafenlande, Florin and Guilder, Hyborea, Barsoom, Opar, Pal-ul-don, and Los Angeles. None were of the slightest use.

"Well," the wanderer sighed, "there's nothin' back the way I came but miles and miles of miles and miles. This's the first branch I've found. How 'bout you?"

"Just the same," the stranger answered as he repacked the maps. "I've been walking down that damn tunnel for as far back as I can remember..."

The wanderer jerked a thumb at the red-lit side tunnel. "Looks like this's our only option. Wanna team up for the duration?"

"Sure," the stranger replied. "Looks like we'd be going the same way anyhow, Ran...ran..." He shook his head. "Damn! I almost had it! I'm sure I know you from somewhere, but..."

The wanderer stood deep in thought. _Ran... something. Ran... toe? Tao? Tao-me..._ "I think it's somethin' like...Rantaome?" He shrugged. "That ain't it, but it's close...I guess it'll do for now. Can you come up with somethin'? I don't wanna keep usin' 'Hey, You!'"

Now it was the stranger's turn to cogitate. 'Rantaome' fancied he could see steam coming out the other's ears. "I know it starts with R, same as yours...Ryou...Ryouki! No, wait, that's not right..."

"Close enough for government work," Rantaome interrupted. "You wanna spend all day burnin' braincells? Let's go!"

"I guess you're right," the newly-dubbed Ryouki agreed. "I'm tired of staring at mushrooms anyway." With that, he shouldered the pack and set off...back the way he came!

Rantaome grabbed his shoulder. "'Scuse me, but we were goin' _this _way?" He pointed toward the side-tunnel.

Ryouki looked about, surprised. "Wha'...? I could've sworn I _was_ going that way..."

"Never mind. Let's just get outta here..."

* * *

The new tunnel sloped gently down for a hundred feet or so before twisting left. As they approached the curve the distant firelight grew brighter, letting the two get a good look at one another -- and themselves -- for the first time. 

Both were boys of perhaps seventeen, tall and black-haired. Rantaome wore black pants and a red silk shirt with wooden ties; his hair was tied off in a pigtail. Ryouki was clad in yellow and black, a shaggy mop of hair held in check by a like-colored bandanna; his heavy pack was topped by a bamboo umbrella. When he spoke, he revealed somewhat outsize canines.

Both were now sure they'd met before. Their memories, however, remained obstinately vague.

The curve led to a stairway spiralling into the depths. The light's source was definitely somewhere below; the two descended.

* * *

"...Sixty-eight, sixty-nine...seventy," Ryouki muttered as they reached the bottom. 

"Seventy? I only counted sixty-nine," Rantaome disputed.

"I was counting from the first step, and there're seventy. You want to go back and try again?"

"So was I, and I say sixty-nine!"

"Seventy," Ryouki stated flatly.

Rantaome shook his head. "This's stupid," he concluded. "How about this: there're sixty-nine and a half!"

Ryouki grinned. "I like the way you think. Sixty-nine and a half steps it is..."

At the foot of the stairway, the tunnel made a sharp right. The companions followed it...and stepped back in shock. Ahead, the tunnel flared into a great cavern...at least a hundred feet across, three hundred high, and brilliantly lit by a vast pillar of flame!

As they stood in awe, a voice rang across the chamber. "Greetings, O dreamers! Enter and be welcome! I am Nasht..."

Another broke in, "...and I am Kaman-Thah! We congratulate you...

"...on finding the Way! Enter, and be not afraid!"

His paralysis broken, Rantaome turned to Ryouki. "This what you were lookin' for?"

Ryouki, still shaken, shook his head. "I think I'd've remembered _this!_" he replied. "I've never seen anything like it in my life...I think."

"And did he say...'dreamers'? Let's check this out."

The companions walked slowly into the cave, trying not to gawk at its sheer immensity. Odd furnishings were scattered here and there: shelves piled high with ancient books and crumbling scrolls, a great stone altar carved with glyphs unpleasant to look upon...

Ahead, silhouetted against the flame-pillar, two tall figures waited: hoary and wizened, keen eyes peering out of vast thickets of greying hair, Nasht and Kaman-Thah projected a near-palpable aura of majesty. Completing the picture were their tall hats, reminiscent of the crowns of ancient Egypt--the word "pschents" flashed across Ryouki's lightly stunned mind.

Rantaome broke the silence first. "Um... pardon us... Can you tell me, um... where we are? And... well..."

"...where we're going?" Ryouki put in bluntly. "And why neither of us can remember anything?"

The one on the left, Nasht judging by faint distinctions in the timbre of their voices, chuckled deeply. "Ask not where you are, young ones, for this is every place and no place at all. Ask rather what you are now doing..."

"...and we shall answer," Kaman-Thah picked up, "'You are dreaming.' This answers also your third question, though not your second."

The boys stared at each other, then back at the tall old men. "This is a dream?" Rantaome finally asked. "So I'm asleep and dreaming all of you?"

"No, it's got to be _me_ dreaming _you_," Ryouki insisted. "At least I hope it is, because I don't want to wake up and find out I'm a butterfly or some weird crap like that."

"Neither is the case," Nasht boomed. "You are both real beings, dreaming the same dream -- a dream that has led you both here at once, something which is most..."

"...Unusual," the other continued, an amused frown crossing his leathery face. "Unprecedented in the history of the Cavern, in fact. But not, I think, actually against any of the Rules."

"Indeed not. Shall we then address and inform them simultaneously?"

"May as well."

"Right, then." Nasht pulled himself into a slightly more towering state, and elucidated: "This, young travelers, is the Cavern of Flame -- the gateway between the two states of dreaming."

"Every human mind has its own private dreamscape," Kaman-Thah spoke, "a thing of airy fancy and little moment. At the same time, every mind touches lightly upon the realms of deeper dreaming to shape and sustain a single vast world -- the true Dreamlands of Earth."

"Most dreamers never truly visit the Dreamlands, save a glimpse or two in childhood or drug-induced stupor. It is a dangerous place, and a buffer is needed to ensure that only truly great dreamers -- the wise, the brave, the blessed, the hopelessly mad -- can enter."

"This is the buffer zone, and we are the judges. My brother and I are the eternal Priests of Dream, set here to prevent tragedy and great loss of life or sanity."

"And you, young ones, are our latest case."

There was silence for a moment, then another, as Rantaome and Ryouki tried to digest all this.

"...So... If we qualify..." the pigtailed youth managed, "you let us through, into this fantasy world? Then what? Do we ever wake up again?"

"Certainly!" Nasht laughed. "You will awaken to the real world, and when you again sleep you may -- if you so desire -- pass directly to the Dreamlands without again visiting this Cavern. It is by no means a permanent change of address -- at least, not immediately."

"Not... immediately?" Ryouki frowned. "That doesn't sound good."

"My brother, I think, enjoys worrying our guests overmuch," the other priest grinned. "A true dreamer has, in essence, two lives. Should you die in the Dreamlands, you will awaken unharmed -- but you will have forever lost access to deeper dream. But should a dreamer die first in the waking world, he may postpone final judgement upon his soul by retiring to the Dreamlands, there to live out both nights and days until Death again claims him."

The fanged boy had to admit that seemed like a good deal. "What about our memories? Will they come back?"

"Dream-amnesia is a common enough thing," Nasht mused. "It is likely that neither of you will recall this experience when you awaken -- for the moment each of you is, in effect, leading two entirely separate lives. It may pass with time, or it may linger.

"But enough of this! You have come here," he stated with a smile, "down the... Sixty-Nine and a Half Steps of Light Slumber..." (at this Rantaome, Ryouki, _and _Kaman-Thah winced) "...and it is our decision that you are both worthy to pass down the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Sleep, and become True Dreamers. Is it your desire, then, to enter the Dreamlands?"

Rantaome thought for a time. "I think... I think if I had all my memories with me, I'd say yes in a heartbeat. I can't really pin anything down, but I think my life's been way too tense lately... too much excitement an' stress..."

"...They're talking about sending us to some kind of fantasy world, you know. Won't there be excitement and stress _there?_"

"Indeed there will, young man," Kaman-Thah interrupted. "The Dreamlands are not tame by any standards -- adventure is the order of the day, although there are islands of calm in the storm. Monsters walk the earth, evil men -- dreamers and dreamlanders alike -- plot there as they do here, and all manner of magic and mayhem can be found within."

"...I still think I should go," Rantaome concluded. "Whatever my 'waking life' is like, I think it's kinda repetitive. I'm stressed out _and_ tired of the same old same old, y'know? Whatever's down there it's gonna be a different kind of excitement, and I'm ready for that. You?"

Ryouki nodded. "I'm going too. I was looking for something when we met... maybe I'll find it in the Dreamlands, or at least find out what it is."

The two youths turned to face the Priests of Dream. "We're ready," they said in unison, and Nasht and Kaman-Thah moved aside to reveal behind them the way down.

* * *

In these latter days much of the Dreamlands have been very thoroughly defined and explored, so that any dreamer may rely on the best-known regions to be waiting beyond the Seven Hundred Steps; the exact distance from Ulthar down the Skai to Dylath-Leen may vary by as many as five miles, but one may rest assured that the city of basalt towers does indeed lie downstream from that town where no man may kill a cat. Likewise, the geography of the three great continents and the seas that separate them is well-known; though dreamers who wander too far inland from Ilek-Vad may find themselves trapped in an unformed and chaotic waste, and reports on the land of Sarrub cannot agree on its true nature. 

In ancient times, though, when the first primitive humans walked the shores of Theem'hdra, the Primal Continent a million years vanished -- ah, then the Dreamlands were yet in flux, shaped and reshaped without end by the nascent dreams of mankind. But even then, even when the first human dreamer ventured down the steps of Deeper Sleep, she found the core of the Dreamlands, as it is now and ever shall remain, there awaiting her.

Thus it was that, as our heroes made their way down the Seven Hundred Steps, the walls subtly changed; neither could tell just when rough stone became polished, gleaming wood, but by the time they reached the foot of that staircase it was apparent that Rantaome and Ryouki were somehow within a living tree. And thus it was also that they opened the stout oaken door, trimmed with both horn and ivory, and stepped out into the Enchanted Wood; for the Wood lies at the heart of all the dreams of mankind.

The two dreamers looked about, taking it all in: the gnarled, twisted oaks towering above crowded out most of the morning light, leaving the forest floor to odd and unsightly toadstools and puffballs, though here and there the sun broke through into grass-carpeted clearings. The Wood was eerily silent; not a note of birdsong or whirr of insect wings disturbed the primal stillness.

"So..." Rantaome broke the hush. "This is the world of dreams? Kinda boring, don'tcha think?"

Ryouki shook his head. "Not to me. Don't you feel it? That rush of...of _belonging_, of being somewhere you were always meant to be..." The bandanna'ed youth spread his arms, as if to embrace the forest or the world itself. "I feel like I've come home."

Rantaome's eyes narrowed. "Does your concept of 'home' include being surrounded by malevolent flesh-eating lemurs?"

"...Of course not! What in the world would give you cause to think such a thing?"

"Because we _are_ surrounded by malevolent flesh-eating lemurs," Rantaome shot back. "See?"

Ryouki snapped out of his brush with bliss and noted that, indeed, the trees around them were suddenly alive with ... lemur-like creatures, check; mouths filled with vicious fangs under a fringe of writhing tendrils, check; rather hostile looks being directed their way, check.

A soft yet menace-ridden chorus of _fluttering_ noises filled the air.

_That one,_ the creatures were whispering to one another in a tongue neither youth could understand, _that one stinks of Cat._

**_Kill!_**

"Back to back!" Rantaome barked as the creatures leaped from high branches and flowed toward them in a furry wave. "Try to clear a path out of here!" As he assumed a half-remembered battle stance, a lambent blue flame sprang up about his hands--

Behind him, a similar aura of yellow-green fire clung to Ryouki as he stripped a black-checked bandanna from his head and charged it with that same energy, causing it to become as stiff and as sharp as a fine steel blade--

-- and the Zoogs were upon them.

* * *

Elsewhere... 

At the far north of dream, north from anywhere, north from even the Pole, there is a mountain that surpasses all others. The sheer enormity of that peak, impossible by the laws of the waking world, is exceeded only by what has been done to it -- for in an age long past, hands now forgotten carved that greatest of mountains into an unthinkably vast city.

This peak, this city, is unknown Kadath: home and refuge since time immemorial of the Gods of Earth.

And, in a sumptuously furnished bedchamber somewhere within its labyrinthine corridors, one of those Gods has just woken from a sleep within dream.

_"He is here!" _the divine Bast gasped, green eyes wide with shock as she sat bolt upright amid silken sheets. "Nath!" In a frenzy, she grabbed her still-sleeping bedmate by the shoulders and began shaking him awake. "Nath, my love, _our son has returned to us!_"

* * *

Elsewhere, again... 

Not north, now, but west. West, to the Basalt Pillars beyond which foolish men say lies Cathuria, but which the wise know mark only the edge of the world and a ceaseless waterfall into eternity...

But the seas of dream no longer surge past the Pillars into that unfathomable chasm. They continue, unbroken and calm, onward... to the shores of a continent previously -- and rightly -- believed nonexistent.

For, in fact, splendid Cathuria does now indeed lie beyond the Pillars of the West.

And in a palace of marble and porphyry built atop a glass bridge over the sweet-scented river Narg, the monarch of that land -- the Dorieb, the Wizard-King of Cathuria -- is in a towering rage.

"All of them. _All_ of them!" The Dorieb struck out blindly, sending an intricately carved coral statuette to shatter against the green marble wall. "The spell was meant to draw _her_ to the Cavern of Flame, her and her _alone_, not EVERY SLEEPING SOUL IN THE CITY! I cannot even track her dreamself now -- every one of them is marked by the spell, _thousands_ of them made it past the Priests, IT COULD TAKE YEARS TO FIND HER!" He whirled, glared at the _jinzou_ who knelt before him. "You. Gather the scouts. It may take years... but here, we _have _years."

The soulless, will-less image of the Dorieb's obsession rose to her feet, nodded curtly, and exited her master's chambers. The wizard-king took a few deep shuddering breaths, collecting himself, and strode to a nearby balcony. As he gazed out over the realm he had forged from nothing, the Dorieb could not keep his thoughts from returning to her. To _them_.

"She is here... and no doubt _you_ as well," he growled, weak-seeming fingers grinding ruts in the black basalt railing. "But you will not have your memories... and neither, _neither will you have her!_

"Saotome Ranma... in the waking world I am nothing, but here I have surpassed the powers of the gods themselves! I will claim Akane, claim her body and soul in this world and the other, and you will be left with nothing! In the end, you will beg me for mercy or death -- _and I will grant you neither!_"

Gosunkugi Hikaru, Wizard-King of splendid Cathuria, laughed the high and horrible laugh of the terribly mad; and as that sound echoed over his kingdom, even the soulless _jinzouakane_ were moved to shudder in fear.

* * *

Next, in the Second Night: _A Dream of a Thousand Cats._

Author's Notes:

I should probably warn people that in addition to the obvious influences of H.P. Lovecraft and Sandy Petersen, this fic is heavily based on the Dreamlands novels of Brian Lumley. So it's going to tend toward Fritz Leiber-style sword and sorcery, and Lumley's characters (David Hero, Eldin the Wanderer, Ula and Una, Gytherik Imniss, et cetera) will be showing up before long...

...and, of most important note, this takes place several waking-world months (many dreaming years) after Lumley's _Elysia: The Coming of Cthulhu_, so there have been some rather radical changes to the familiar setting. The details should come out in the course of the Second Night.


End file.
